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Yesterday, I interviewed the Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and he said this: “Failure is catastrophe. Failure is genocide. Failure means we come back. Failure means they follow us home.” What if he is right? What if he is right and what you're proposing, and a lot of Democrats are proposing, results in genocide in Iraq?

Well, look ,what you have right now is chaos in Iraq, after having spent hundreds of billions of dollars, after, seeing, cost 3200 lives lost, what you now see is chaos and there is no end in sight, now John McCain may believe that it's an option for us to maintain an indefinite occupation of Iraq, regardless of what happens in terms of the politics within Iraq, so that we're every year sending 100 billion dollars over to Iraq, so that every year we're seeing hundreds or thousands of young Americans dying, so that we continue to see a deterioration of America's standing in the world.

I don't think that serves the best interests of the United States, and I don't think it will ultimately result in the kind of stabilization in Iraq, that's necessary. These are judgments calls, I don't question John McCain’s sincerity in believing that the approach that he wants to take which is essentially continuation of the Bush's policy over the last six years. All that I want to say…

If you were president of the United States in January 2009, and the situation is basically the same in Iraq as it is right now, what would be your immediate first steps?

Well, the bill that I put in, I think…

But assuming that bill doesn't go…

No, no, but I think assuming that things are the same, I think the same dynamic will be at work, which is to say, we are gonna pull out our combat troops out of Iraq in a phased, systematic way, that we continue to provide the Iraqi government with logistical and training support, that we have those forces over the horizon to respond to crisis that spill over into the remainder of the region. And most importantly, we have an aggressive diplomatic initiative with those countries in the region to make sure that we are part of a broader conversation about how can we stabilize Iraq and stabilize the region.

You're president of the United State. 15 American sailors and marines are captured by Iranians, the Revolutionary Guard in the northern Persian Gulf, and they're held. What do you do?

Well, I think that the British obviously are taking the prudent steps that are required, sending a strong, unequivocal message to the Iranians that they have to release these British soldiers. I think that they are handling it in the appropriate way. My sense is that the Iranians are gonna stand down fairly soon, but, look, one of the obligations of the commander in chief is to make sure that our troops are protected, wherever they're protected around the world.

So, they, if they were to hold them, let's say, for 444 days,Iranians have held Americans hostage for a long period of time,what, do you just let them be held there?

No, you don’t. I think you take firm action to make sure that those troops are returned.

You want to be specific?

You know, I think that it's important to say that all options, including military, would be on the table in such a circumstance.